Lurking Salt

As a follow-up to an earlier blog, we will re-visit salt in the American diet. How much of a problem is salt in the American diet? Here are some impressive pieces of data from an article in the Wall Street Journal.

• Average adult consumes 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day
• A teaspoon of salt equals about 2,300 milligrams of sodium
• 90% of adults consume more sodium than the US dietary guidelines currently recommend
• For about 70% of adults, halfway through lunch, the diet surpasses the recommend sodium levels of 1,500 milligrams
• Consumption of salt for women has gone up 67% since the early 1970s
• A single slice of packaged bread can contain 150 to 200 milligrams of sodium

The very best way to drastically reduce the salt in your diet is to stop eating processed foods. Things that come in a box are often replete with sodium. Sodium makes the fake food in the box taste better and maybe if it tasted as nutritionally-beneficial as it actually was, people wouldn't think of eating it in the first place. The message remains the same... ban the box. Eat whole, natural and organic food whenever possible.